


Red Blood

by DarkStarsShineToo



Category: Batman (Comics), DC Animated Universe, Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:36:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkStarsShineToo/pseuds/DarkStarsShineToo
Summary: Jason doesn't know how else to survive.His death is a painful memory that he's trying to overcome, but the nightmares still come more often than he's willing to admit. He's still estranged from his adopted family.So he keeps doing what he's doing.Cleaning up the streets by spilling blood unto them.He doesn't know how else to survive.  Hannah Nichols doesn't know which way to go.She's new to town, in her first year of college, but she's fairly confident that she can navigate the city well enough on her own.Until, that is, she finds herself wandering through increasingly questionable neighborhoods and back alleys on her way back to the dorm from a club. Her phone doesn't have service, and the only people in the vicinity don't seem friendly enough to ask for help.So she keeps walking in the direction she's been going.She doesn't know where else to go.  Hannah meets the gang of men moments before Jason catches up to them.Her knight in blood-splattered armor.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A multi chapter fic about Jason Todd that will include his life as the Red Hood, the various states of his relationships with other members of the batfam and how they try to mend them, and an original character.  
> I hope you like her, and the story as a whole!

**Prologue**

 

       A man ran through an alley. He held a duffle bag tightly in his hands, and he stumbled and threw wide eyed glances toward every noise he heard. The night was dark; the moon was mostly obscured by clouds. It would probably rain. 

         The man seemed to think he was being pursued, but anyone who saw him would have sworn otherwise. There was no one to see him though, or even pursue him. It was after midnight, and there was static in the air that precluded a thunder and lightening storm. Any other night the man loved the quiet before a storm, but tonight the silence just made him weary. The package he carried was nothing he wanted to be caught with, and ordinarily he would never have agreed to deliver it. He'd just lost his job, though, and the sum money he'd been offered was just too high to pass up.

           He only had another block to go, and he thought that, if he'd gotten this far, the probability that he would be caught would be slim, and shrinking with every step he took. Nevertheless, the tingles running down his spine didn't cease, and the feeling that he was being followed only grew as clouds rolled further in.

          His steps quickened; if he could just deliver this package and collect his money, he could go home. He'd never accept another job like this again. The paranoia was overwhelming and, as far as he was concerned, this feeling of danger was very overrated. The only thrill he'd seek from that point on, he thought to himself, would be the light anxiety of job interviews.  

         It was stupid to get involved in the drug business. Not only were gangs involved, which was easily danger enough, but this city was also owned by... What did they call him, again? Red Blood? No... Red... Well, it was Red Something-or-other, anyway, and from what the papers said about him, one would have to be dense to cross him. 

             A whistle interrupted his thoughts, and the man immediately went white. The voice that followed made him freeze. It was a mixture between robotic and demonic, and neither made him feel particularly at ease, nor did the fact that it said his name. "Whew, you're doin' a baaad thing, Danny." Dan dropped his package and swung around to see where the voice was coming from, but the area behind him was empty. Another whistle made his heart pound, and drew his attention upward, to the rooftop.

         There stood a figure, cloaked in darkness, and he barely had a second to process this before the figure launched itself off the roof. Dan was knocked roughly to the ground, and his last, wide eyed thought before his head cracked against the pavement was, _oh my God, his face is red._

         "Nighty-night, Danny."


	2. Chapter 1: Jason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason begins his hunt and contemplates his existence. Next chapter will be Hannah, then it will switch back to Jason. I might change the pattern in later chapters, or a single chapter might have both their perspectives, but I'll decide that later. Hope you enjoy!

    The men were scattering, trying to make him choose between multiple, thinly spread targets rather than being an easy to pick off cluster. Somewhat amused, the Red Hood only watched them run, revving his bike engine playfully. 

        As any predator would tell you, it was always more fun to have lively prey. 

        The scattered men ran one by one to the van parked in the alley, the first three in the back doors, the fourth in the trunk, and the fifth in the driver's seat. As the vehicle began to peel away, the sixth thug sprinted after it, and threw himself through the rolled down passenger side window. His legs were still dangling outside the car when it sharply turned the corner. 

          For the moment, the vigilante left his bike running, but propped it up with the kickstand. The rest of the group would be getting a headstart, but he could catch up to them later. He turned his attention to the one member of the gang that had been left behind, and as he sauntered closer, the dazed but still conscious man tried to scuttle away on his hands and knees. The Hood tugged him back by his shirt collar, feeling like he was restraining a wily dog as he did. 

         The guy was young, but older than Jason. He was wearing a tank top, despite the chilly October air, and he had a distinct tattoo on his shoulder. It was nearly identical to the symbol that Batman wore, but this one had a crude, garish face, drawn with harsh lines and emphasized fangs. It was the gang symbol for the "Gotham Bats," which sounded like a baseball team, but was actually a drug cartel. They were also responsible for the recent stabbings and rapes in the lower west side of Gotham. The man plopped back onto the cement on his ass, and was met with a combat boot to his face. Personally, Red Hood thought the thug looked better with a broken nose. He usually did.  

         Jason might not be on the best terms with the Bat himself, but he still chose to wear the symbol for a reason. And this gang of scum-of-the-earth douche bags was sullying everything that it stood for. The gang activity alone was enough to gain the Red Hood's attention, but the sarcastic jab of what they called themselves had gotten Jason somewhat personally invested. He'd visited one of the rape victims in the hospital that morning, under the hastily assumed guise of a police detective. Her name was Ginger Hart, and she was twenty-two. She was a tiny, frail blonde. Everything about her was soft, and gentle-looking, and she seemed about as fragile as a butterfly's wing. Clearly, she'd never stood a chance against the Gotham Bats, or really any singular man with like intent. While he questioned her, Jason had lowered his voice and stood only just inside the door to her hospital room to try to keep her comfortable, but she had still cowered in the farthest corner of her hospital bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, anxiously gnawing on her thumb nail and refusing to make eye contact. 

         Looking down at this waste of space in the alley, the man beneath the red helmet felt rage begin to build up inside of him, hating to remember the look of pure brokenness on Ginger Hart's face. He hadn't known her, but that didn't matter. Her life had been irreversibly altered. She'd be in therapy for years, maybe never trust another man in her life, maybe never be able to touch him if she did. 

         Jason was by no logic any sort of saint. There was a lot of blood on his hands that he couldn't, and didn't try to, deny. But he'd never hurt anyone who hadn't deserved to be hurt, and he'd certainly never raped anyone. Or, he thought bitterly, dealt drugs to, or abused children. 

           Narrowly, the vigilante resisted his immediate urge to beat the living shit out of the lowlife in front of him and then put a bullet in his head. It would be satisfying in the short-term, but only in the short-term. If he was going to dismantle the entire operation, Jason needed some intel to work with. Fortunately, interrogations weren't necessarily completely devoid of pain for the subject, if conducted in a certain manner. 

        And of course, that certain manner was the manner in which Jason generally preferred to conduct his interrogations. 

        He could remember countless times during his run as Robin when he'd been chastised for his ruthlessness in battle; by Bruce, by Dick, even by Raven. Bruce had a steely anger whenever he brought the topic up, and Jason had never been able to force himself to listen. Dick had been a bit more understanding than their adopted father, but his incessant allusions to his own time as Robin had only made Jason feel like he was always being compared to Dick Grayson's past, and he knew he'd never be as good as the original Robin. Raven, though, had always been soft concern. A cold, gentle hand placed on his shoulder in Titan's Tower before she backed up to stand a few feet away as she softly voiced her worry, telling him that she knew what it felt like to be filled with anger, to have to squash it, to sometimes slip up. She was the only one that the young, teenage Jason ever tried to listen to regarding his sometimes overtly violent tactics. 

            Of course, her advice hadn't carried over to after his resurrection. There was something about being brutally murdered and unavenged that left a bad taste in his mouth, and he couldn't scrub at his tongue enough to get it out. Prowling Gotham City every single night for the rest of his life had never been something Jason dreamed of for himself. Even when he was Robin, with the Crusade being one of his top priorities, he hadn't really entertained the idea of becoming like Bruce. Sure, being Robin had been fun, but he had diligently worked for months to catch himself up on school that he had missed, had worked himself up to solid B's all around, and was hoping to move up to A's. He was going to graduate. He was going to do something with his life that his father never had. 

           He felt the open wound on his heart with greater intensity every time he remembered that the opportunity had been stolen away from him. His fate had been sealed the second he decided to track down his biological mother. 

           Jason Peter Todd would never _be_ anybody. He couldn't be anybody. Jason Todd had died in an explosion of unexplained origin when he was fifteen years old. Robin 2.0 had died at the hands of the Joker, and there was a long enough stretch before he was replaced that everyone knew it. But no matter how long Bruce had waited, Jason still felt a dull sting every time he saw Tim don the yellow cape. It was nothing personal. It was just the ache of the past. 

          Jason never really felt better about any of it. It was the reason why he rarely visited his adopted family, apart from his renewed anger every time he looked Bruce in the eye. He didn't feel whole. He barely felt like a person, as broken as he was, so he spent his days sleeping in his shitty, one room apartment, and his nights cleaning up Gotham's streets by spilling unto them the blood of the guilty. 

           Jason Todd was still legally dead. 

            But the Red Hood was alive and well, to the terror of every violent criminal within the city limits. 

          As he holstered his drawn Desert Eagle and proceeded to crack his knuckles, Jason smiled beneath his helmet at the terrified look on the gangster's face. 

_Time to make you feel a little bit of what you made **her** feel._


End file.
